Common Grace Is Not Enough

Genesis 36 and the Genealogy of Esau

Well, I know this is the chapter everyone's been waiting for ever since we began our study of Genesis. Of course, this is not something that a preacher is always looking forward to preach, a long list of rather difficult cumbersome names.

But as our brother alluded to, there are some riches to be had here in Genesis 36. We're considering the Toledot of Esau. Remember this word. Toledot, or generations, or sometimes translated genealogy, has been the structural backbone of the book of Genesis.

We're now at the second to last of these Toledot, of these genealogies, with the genealogy of Esau. Now approaching our passage this morning, I almost wanted to do what the 19th century expositor C .H. McIntosh does when in his chapter-by-chapter exposition of the book of Genesis, he writes only this for chapter 36.

Genesis 36 gives us a catalog of Esau's sons with their various titles and localities. We shall not dwell on this, but we will pass on to a more fruitful and interesting section in the canon. Well, thanks McIntosh.

Unfortunately, when we're expositing through the scriptures, we don't have the luxury always to say we shall not dwell on this, as tempting as it may be. We shall dwell on this, at least for the next 45 minutes or so,.

This morning.

Now we're not going to do that in any great detail, and that's not just because of the complexity of the text, but also it's an opportunity for us again to take a step back and keep in mind we want to, when possible, take a look at the bigger themes, the bigger movement of Genesis, looking more at the forest theologically than the trees.

And Genesis 36 really gives us an organic way to do that, as I hope you'll see. Of course, many of us, when we begin our daily Bible reading plans at the start of every new year, with the goal of thoroughly reading every jot and tittle of scripture, every paragraph and every chapter of every book, we usually start out very well, and then we get to the table of nations in Genesis 10, we lose a little heart, and maybe you just make a second effort and you double down and you stretch all the way to Genesis 36, and it's the fatal blow.

You lose heart, you just skim, you feel bad about it, you take a cold shower the next day, but you just can't help it. These names you've never heard of, you don't know how to pronounce half of them, you think that must have meant something for the ancients, but it doesn't mean much to me, and so I'll just go on to Joseph in Genesis 37.

Can you name one fact about any of these people? Maybe there's an astute student of scripture here that could point out two or three things. Can you point out one thing about Edomite culture? One thing about the particularities of the hill country of Seir?

It seems so foreign, so distant, so strange to us. We might be able to pick out a few familiar names or places, but for the most part, when we encounter a genealogy like this, which is a very long, detailed, historical record of the rise of a nation and the descent of progeny from an important biblical figure, it shows a poor tendency we have to look back at history as though it were always simple and undefined, and only since the age of the smartphone or space exploration has history become more complex.

Days in our way of reading blur into centuries, and every year seems like more of the same, and that is farming, farming, farming, farming, births and deaths, farming, farming, farming, but nothing's really changing.

People aren't moving and shaking the earth, the nations aren't frothing, and of course we know by experience, we know just as human beings that that is not the case at all, that at every level of any society in recorded human history, there's always complexity, always things, pressures, forces in motion, day by day, and here with Esau, we're spanning over centuries in about three paragraphs.

Esau, Edom, and the Rejected Line

Now the Bible does not spell out details for us, but I just want that to be in the background of your mind. This is recorded for a reason. It's not only recorded here, it's repeated in 1 Chronicles 1.

There's significance to this table of names, and I hope we'll see some of that significance together. Behind each name and underneath each line are the complexities of human life, human experiences, the sorrows and the heartbreaks, as well as the joys and the blessings, and all of that is contained within this genealogy.

It's amazing how a bare-bones list of names can rob us of so much interesting detail. I was watching a documentary, this was some time ago, it was just a short, I believe it was a 60-minute segment, about a family in Virginia, the Millers, and it was, I believe, an Air Force veteran who had a desire to purchase a home in rural Virginia.

He knew that he had some family connections there, and he decided to find this little estate called Sharwood, and Sharwood was an old southern plantation, and it turns out that this man, through some interesting characters and relatives, they were able to do some genealogical research, and it turned out that he and his family, the Millers, were a descendant of the slave owners of Sharwood, and so he had bought and become an owner of the home that his ancestors had been enslaved in, and he now owned the quarters where they were enslaved.

And he would walk over the graveyard, the unmarked graves, and one of the genealogical records that helped them understand that this was truly their ancestors' place was this unmarked list of slaves that were owned as property to C .M. Miller, and it was simply by numbers.

They didn't actually have names, and so it was just numbers with a birth date, so you could have an age. This bare-bones list, but you actually go into the quarters, and you see life lived, and you have relatives that have distant memories of what their great-grandmother or great-grandfather was like, you realize how much color and detail and awe there is just in a list, in a bare list, and we have that before us in Genesis 36, the genealogy of Esau, who is Edom.

Well, let's take a step back and consider where we are. We've come to the end of Isaac's toledoth with chapter 35. Remember that the generation always goes to the offspring, so the whole Jacob cycle was technically the toledoth of Isaac, the generation from Isaac, and so we're going to begin in chapter 37 the generations of Jacob, even though we'll be looking at who issues from Jacob, namely Joseph.

That's how the toledoth structure works. So we've just completed the Isaac cycle, as it were, with all of our time with Jacob, and we find the fulfillment in chapter 35 of Benjamin being born, and thus the completion of Jacob's household, with the twelfth tribe of Israel being born.

Now he dwells in his father's place, quite literally in his home. He now bears the mantle of his grandfather's covenant. So it's quite natural for us now to move toward Esau's genealogy, since we've completed the household of Jacob, and we're about to transition to the cycle of Joseph.

This is something we've seen whenever we've approached a transition like this in the Genesis narrative. The rejected line is always given their genealogy before the chosen line. I don't know if you recognize that, but it's true.

We had the genealogy of Cain before we had the genealogy of Seth. We had the genealogy of Ishmael before we had the genealogy of Isaac, and here we have the genealogy of Esau before we have the genealogy of Jacob.

Let's look at some details. I'm not going to go through this list exhaustively, but I just want to point out a few highlights. Remember that when Jacob left Peniel in chapter 32 to reconcile, we found Esau taking possession of the hill country of Seir.

So not only do we have his actual blood descendants on this list, but we also have the people that he conquered, the people that he dispossessed. So look at verse 20. These were the sons of Seir the Horite who inhabited the land.

What is this doing in Esau's genealogy? Well, these are the people that Esau took possession over. Esau settled in this area, he conquered it, he intermarried with the Horites, and eventually he dispossessed them so that they became Edomites.

They became those of Esau rather than Horites or Horite tribes. We find this, for instance, in Deuteronomy 2, verse 12. Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them and dwelt in their place. So embedded within this genealogy is the conqueror Esau, shedding blood and possessing the Horites as his own progeny.

And then, of course, in Genesis 27, we saw Isaac's desire to bless Esau, and he did bless him. Remember that part of that blessing was for Esau to have the fruitfulness of the earth and the dew of heaven.

And we have that really recorded in detail here in Genesis 36. This genealogy is, at first glance, God's fulfillment of his promise to Esau. It's also God's fulfillment of his promise to Rebekah. Remember in Genesis 25 when he said to her, two nations are in your womb, two peoples are in your inward parts, and they will be divided.

And here we have that very clearly in the genealogy. These two nations have emerged and they are divided. But God blesses Esau. And there's no other way to say it. Genesis 36 is recording God's blessing on Esau.

In so far as he has many and mighty descendants, land and kings at issue from him, influence on the world with many treasures, many possessions, much more than he could have, so much, in fact, that he had to leave Canaan.

And that is God's blessing, a la Genesis 27, upon Esau. Now, the legacy of Esau and Jacob living on as the nations of Edom and Israel is never forgotten in the Old Testament. They play an important role in the corporate life of Israel.

The rivalry remains sharp throughout all of Israel's existence. In fact, they're on the record historically, really until the destruction of the temple. After that, we really don't know what happened to the Edomites.

They had different iterations, like the Edomians, from which Herod came to reign over Judea. But of course, from the beginning, the nation of Edom is a thorn in Israel's side. Remember in Exodus when the nation of Israel is being led out by God, led out of Egypt, and they're looking to pass through Edom and Edom refuses to let them pass.

And they're discouraged as they head out into the wilderness. They're of short heart, I believe is the Hebrew idiom. And ultimately, the nation of Edom is put under the dominion of Israel, under Saul, and then at its height under David as monarch.

And then through the prophets, Edom is rebuked in part because Edom celebrates when Assyria and Babylon begin to invade the land of promise and drag God's people out into exile. You can read Psalm 137, for example, where the Edomites are mocking and rebuking.

And the psalmist is saying, don't forget, God, don't forget that they mocked us. Don't forget that they sang these songs when our foundations were being raised. You can read the prophetic rebukes, Jeremiah 49, Ezekiel 25.

The whole book of Obadiah is a prophetic rebuke of the nation of Edom. Malachi 1, as we had it in Romans 9, Jacob, I have loved Esau, that is Edom, I have hated. And so we have this rivalry throughout scripture, we have it touched upon in verse 12.

Timah was the concubine of Eliphaz, Esau's son, and she bore Amalek to Eliphaz. There's no reason for Amalek to be mentioned here. As far as progeny goes, he's not the direct progeny of Esau, but rather of Eliphaz.

So why is Amalek included? Because of his role attacking Israel when they came out in Exodus 17. And if you've read 1 Samuel 15, it's not forgotten even centuries later. We even get a sense of the rivalry between Edom and Israel in verse 31.

Now, these were the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel. In other words, Israel, as the younger sibling, that younger nation, that was always trying to catch up to the strength and the growth and the power of the elder brother, Israel had to walk by faith, trusting in God, laying hold of the covenant promises that were yet unseen.

Remember that the nation of Israel had been told they would dwell in a land that God would give to them, that Canaan would belong to them and would be theirs forever, would be a treasured possession, that kings would come forth from them and reign over the land.

But when we're reading the genealogy of Esau, none of this has taken place. But look at the nation of Edom. Here's Esau in his land with kings and chiefs, with family and wealth and power and authority in a nation like Edom and running parallel tracks.

Where is Israel? Huddling under the safety of Pharaoh, trying to get by through the famine. Most of the brothers in abject dependence upon the power of Egypt, then at one point at least imprisoned in Egypt and then wandering in the wilderness while the mighty nation of Edom says you may not pass.

Not to paraphrase Gandalf, thou shalt not pass. Now, if we were to judge the spiritual state of Esau and Jacob externally, who would you think God's blessing resided upon? Well, initially, most likely you would have said Esau.

He's a man of the field. He's a go-getter. He's a self-starter. You know, he's serving his father, going out, taking the game in. He's the kind of son you would want. He's not this rather pathetic, imbecilic deceiver like Jacob.

Surely God's blessing wouldn't rest upon him. When you look upon the spiritual state of the nation of Edom as opposed to the spiritual state of the nation of Israel externally, that is by material blessings.

Who does it look like God's blessing is residing on? We look at Genesis 36 and we would have to say it almost looks like it's residing on Edom.

They have all the power.

They're actually walking in the promises in a parody. They're walking in the promises that God said, but hasn't given to Israel. They have land, they have power, they have kings, they have possession, they have influence.

It is not so with Israel. And so when we look at the genealogy at one level, we learn to distinguish between earthly, natural blessings as marks of God's favor and spiritual, supernatural blessings as signs of God's favor.

It is not necessarily a sign that one has come into a saving relationship with God just because they enjoy physical prosperity or physical health. In fact, rarely is that the case. You can be without earthly riches and yet be spiritually rich, James 2.

You can be overflowing with wealth and be liable to hell, Luke 12. You can experience much physical suffering in this life because your hope is being pitched toward unimaginable glory to come, 2 Corinthians 4.

Or you can be healthy and comfortable and everything seems to go well with you and you truly are blessed. And yet your foot is slipping, it will drag you all the way down to Sheol, Psalm 73. See, these external things are not signs of God's blessing in a salvific way.

And yet we cannot deny that Esau has received tangible blessings from God according to Isaac's blessing in Genesis 27. And we have it confirmed in Hebrews 11 .20, Isaac, by faith, blessed both of his sons, both Jacob and Esau, and Esau was blessed.

And Genesis 36 records the blessing of God upon Esau. Now, it begs the question, and I borrow these questions from John Murray, the great Scottish theologian. I only ever mention that they're Scottish.

John Murray, the great Scottish theologian at Westminster Seminary a generation ago, two generations ago, in an essay from his collected writings. I'm using these questions, applying them to Esau. They weren't originally applied to Esau.

How is it that men who still lie under the wrath and curse of God and are heirs of hell enjoy so many good gifts at the hand of God? How is it that men who are not savingly renewed by the Spirit of God nevertheless exhibit so many qualities, gifts, and accomplishments that promote the preservation and happiness and cultural progress and social and economic improvement of themselves and of theirs?

How is it that races and peoples that have been apparently untouched by the redemptive and regenerative influence of the gospel contribute so much to human civilization? To put the question most comprehensively, how is it that this sin-cursed world enjoys so much favor and kindness at the hand of a holy and ever-blessed Creator?

We can ask those questions of Esau in Genesis 36. How is it that the nation of Edom becomes so mighty, so influential, so well-off compared to the pitiful, pottering, plodding nation of Israel at the same time?

And the answer, there's a few answers to this, but the first answer to that to those larger questions is found in two words, common grace. Common grace. What is common grace? At Lystra in Acts 14, Paul says that God did good by giving you rain from heaven, fruitful seasons, satisfying your heart with food and with gladness.

Jesus says in Matthew 5 that God makes the sun to rise upon the evil and the good, sends rain on both the wicked and the just. The Father in Luke 6 is described as being kind even to the ungrateful and evil.

That's an amazing thought, isn't it? The Father is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Now, common grace is a technical term. This isn't something I made up. I don't think it's the first time we've discussed it and hopefully this will just start clearing up and getting better clarity on what common grace is.

Common grace is a technical term and in Reformed theology, it's a debated term. Not all Reformed theologians agree that there is such a thing as common grace. Even those that agree there is squabble over how best to clarify and categorize it.

Now, without getting into any of those debates, my position would be common grace is a biblical category. Common grace is something that we can understand in a systematic and theological way. When we say common grace, all we're doing is making a distinction between the general favor and blessing that God bestows upon all humanity in a universal, in other words, common way, and the special saving grace that is completely toward His people.

Not toward all in the common, but uniquely toward His people. So we often have the distinction common grace as opposed to salvific grace, the grace which leads to salvation. Common grace applies earthly and temporal things to all.

Rain, food, clothing, family, shelter, the dependability of seasons and physical laws in the universe. This is all the benefits that flow from the cross of Christ, I think we must say. For those who have ears to hear, we make a distinction between Roman Catholic theologians that depend on some sort of neutral ground for natural theology to create a common grace.

We say no. All grace is blood-bought grace. But we recognize that common grace, though given to all, common grace falls short of the grace that is necessary to translate people from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of light.

Whereas salvific grace applies salvation to one's soul, using means, giving benefits, chiefly spiritual, chiefly eternal, and yet whatever they are, they're only for God's elect. And so it is common because it is universal toward all and it is grace because it is undeserved.

Right? This is not what all humanity deserves. They don't deserve food and rain, shelter, family, birds, songbirds that sing beautifully in the morning. This is not what fallen, rebellious humanity deserves.

But God is kind to the ungrateful and God is kind to the evil. And we attribute that not to just some special narrow category in which we step outside of creation and have a unique relationship to God, everything else just goes on as the great wound-up clock of the deists.

No. We say the whole world is flooded by the grace of God. He upholds everything by his mercy and his love, even for those who do not savingly know him. That's common grace. Let me give you a few definitions, a few working descriptions.

Lorraine Bettner, great theologian of a few generations ago. PNR used to publish, you know, 14, 15 of his books. Now you can only find them on eBay, but they're worth reading. Lorraine Bettner, God makes sun to shine on the evil and the good and sends the rain on the just and the unjust.

These are the blessings of common grace. Though they are designed primarily for the elect, right? It's for the sake of the elect. They're shared by all mankind. And since this world is not the final place of final reward, the place, but rather the place of discipline and testing and development for the Lord's people, these blessings are often enjoyed in greater abundance by the non-elect than by the elect.

But in themselves, they are not sufficient to bring a single soul to salvation. The kindness that is meant by God to lead men to repentance is spurned by man, unless God shows saving grace to their souls.

John Bolt, more recent theologian, translator of Hermann Bavink's works, he says this, the doctrine of common grace is based on the conviction that prior to and to a certain extent independent of the sovereignty of divine grace and redemption, there is a universal sovereignty in creation and providence that restrains the effects of sin and gives general gifts on all people and thus it makes human society and culture possible, even among the unredeemed.

We could say even among the nation of Edom. Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch Prime Minister, a wonderful theologian, he defines common grace as the act of God by which negatively he curbs the operations of Satan, death, and sin and positively he creates an intermediate state for the world as well as for the human race, which is and continues to be deeply and radically sinful, but in which sin cannot work out its ends.

Do you see? Despite man's sinfulness, God restrains the sin so that his purposes of creation can continue, so that his purpose of redemption can continue. So common grace exists for the sake of salvific grace.

In that sense the whole world is a blood-bought world and every breath and every beauty and every glory and every comfort is a blood-bought grace. Let me give you one more and this is short. It's to the point, which is great.

John Frame, systematic theologian from RTS, common grace is God's favor and gifts given to those who will not finally be saved. It's a great definition. Common grace is God's favor and gifts given to those who will not finally be saved.

Notice in Genesis 36, and we've seen it elsewhere, notice that the Bible does not deny that unbelieving people can be immensely gifted, skilled, brilliant, sophisticated, technologically savvy, and in a narrow sort of horizontal sense, admirable.

Admirable. You can admire these Edomites in a certain way that we can admire the lost movers and shakers, the technology developers and engineers of our own day. There's a certain way in which it's admirable what they're capable of doing.

The Bible's not embarrassed to acknowledge that, to somehow claim that only, only believing image bearers have that capacity to use the creativity and giftedness of their God-given domain. Of course not.

Every image bearer of God has these innate capacities and is encouraged to bring them to bear in the earth, and yet we see that those unbelieving image bearers are an act of rebellion and often they're using that ingenuity and skill against the purposes of God and against creation.

A case in point would be how we can get so, so technologically and medically advanced and yet use that technology to destroy little embryos. There was an op-ed, I just read this in the wee hours of the morning, an op-ed that's coming out of New York Times.

I can't remember the name. He was a missionary doctor, and it was, it was a wonderful piece. I don't know that I would have stated everything the way he stated it, but he was very bold in his Christian faith, and he, he basically was raised in a Christian home, and he became a surgeon, I believe, in, in parts of Sudan, and was, was basically a missionary doctor.

He talked about his pro-life convictions and all of the familiar talking points we might have on that. But then he talked about this, this dilemma that he, he had to face when a young mother was, was hemorrhaging, was on the brink of death, and, and he knew the only way to save her was to terminate that life, and, and he was still wrestling with that throughout the whole piece.

He never thought that in this work he did to try to spread the gospel, and, and heal in the way that Jesus healed, and to seek body and soul to be, to be light to the world. He never thought he'd have to face a moral dilemma quite like that.

What I loved about it was just the way he ended, which was the hope of the resurrection, and all he said was, my only hope is in the resurrection of Christ and all that that means, and he spelled it out.

That's exactly the kind of gospel that has to be preached to the Babble builders of our day, to the Edomites who, who use their technology and their skill against the purpose of God. We don't for a moment deny the gifts, the abilities, the competencies of the Edomites, or of any unbelieving people.

We're able to sit back and admire the leaders, and the fighters, and the protectors, and the earthshakers, but all along in Genesis, from the very beginning, we've seen the divide between the sons of God and the Cainites, or the seed of the serpent, and the seed of promise, and whatever manifestation may show, there's always this clear divide between those who are walking in the purpose and ways of God, and those who are actively resisting it, seeking to undermine and usurp it.

Cain had a very different worldview than Abel. Lamech had a very different worldview than Seth. Ishmael had a very different worldview than Isaac, and Esau, as we see, has a very different worldview than Jacob.

Everyone in this world, every human being that breathes this air, belongs to one or the other. There is no neutrality. There is no in-between. There is no via media. There is no third way, and that's what we see in Genesis 36, in comparison to Genesis 37.

That's what we've seen from the very beginning of Genesis. Every human being in the world, ultimately, belongs to one line or the other, to one people or the other, to one master or the other, to one future or the other.

Everyone in the world, ultimately, will either be redeemed, and renewed, and made to live in an Eden-like presence of God, or will persist in their rebellion and ultimately be cast away from his presence eternally.

And there is no in-between. It may surprise us, frankly. It may surprise us how many people we thought were in that line with us as fellow Israelites that were never part of us. We have so many similar values, so many similar thoughts and concerns, so many motives and impetus that drives us.

We might actually be surprised, shocked, we thought they were with us. We thought they were in the line of promise. We didn't realize they were Edomites. And we might, by the same measure, be shocked at who's in the line of the Israelites.

How could you be one of us? How could you truly be one of us? That dividing line is so steep, so sharp, so paradoxical. No wonder Jesus could say in Matthew 7, there will be so many who cry out to me on that day.

So many. And what is the response? I never knew you. I never knew you. Your name was not in my genealogy. Your name was not written in my book. Robert Braeburn puts this so well. It is the dream of the world to unite all people into one kingdom.

We see that today, don't we? Globalism as resurgent as ever. It's like a throwback to the Babel builders in Genesis 11. The world's dream is to unite all people into one kingdom, one family, refusing to acknowledge the antithesis between these two groups of people, the serpent seed and the seed of promise.

The Bible, on the contrary, is forever reminding us of it. It will not let us forget that God's plan for humanity is not one indiscriminate group, but sheep separated from goats, wheat separated from tares.

The Bible is ultimately dualistic in the destiny of man. That's unavoidable. There will be those that enter at the right hand of the Father and those that are cast aside by the left. There is a dividing line that runs between every man, woman, and child.

Every human being must choose whose side he is on. And so we see God's common grace upon Esau. But we see that common grace is not enough. Common grace is not enough. We come to Genesis 36, which may have read like a triumphant roll of accomplishment to Esau's ears.

What did my boys do? Oh, yeah, you know, that's the Edomite way. It certainly reads like a list of accomplishments to worldly ears. Wow. I think I'd rather live in Edom than, you know, in a pit in Egypt.

I think I'd rather be a chief than a house slave. We come to Genesis 36 and we know the world looks at that as something triumphant. As Christians, we read it tragically. We read it tragically. Because for us, it's not a history of accomplishment.

It's a history of denying the faith and straying from the path and repudiating the witness and testimony of a father and of a grandfather. It's a history of Esau backsliding as he seeks his own desires.

And though he accomplishes much in the world, it all perishes away as his own soul perishes. It's a tragic chapter in Genesis. It's tragic because Esau shows no desire for the life of God. He certainly shows no hope for the promise of God.

He marries Canaanite wives. Much to the frustration and vexation of his parents, he leaves Canaan. He has no interest to dwell under the tutelage of his father. He has no fear of God. He has no love for God.

The Edomites listed here are, in earthly terms, very impressive people. They received God's common grace in abundance. But common grace is not enough. Their lives are defined by their ignorance of God.

What a horrific statement to have. That your life could be defined by your ignorance of God. That your life is lived out primarily in ignorance of God. Esau did not choose the path of the righteous. Psalm 1, he chose the path of the wicked.

Even Psalm 1, even before you get to the praises and laments of the psalms, you're just setting it out. Reminder, friendly PSA announcement. There's only two groups, two ways, two destinies. Esau and all those that follow after Esau, all our modern-day Edomites, they embody the philosophy of Frank Sinatra in his song, My Way.

This is something that Esau would have on his tombstone. I've lived a life that's full. I've traveled each and every highway, and more, much more, I did it my way. I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway, and more, much, much more, I did it, I did it my way.

That is the anthem of Edom. That is the anthem of fallen man. That is the anthem of every person who chooses a way that seems right to them, but its end therein leads to death. I did it my way. Well, at least I'm doing it my way.

At least I'm living on my terms. The attitude of my way will never lead you to forsake the city and the wealth and the power and the prestige, to follow through on the ambition and all that it can bring you in a temporal way.

The attitude of my way will never cause you to dwell in the vulnerable modesty of a tent, waiting for a land you've been promised yet do not possess. Oh, that's not my way. That's God's way. That's God's way to live in a vulnerable dependence upon him, looking for the surety of things yet unseen, yet unpossessed.

That's God's way.

Esau's way, the Edomite way. It's my way, my terms, my power, my ambition. Believers, as the Israel of God, we recognize that believers have always lived surrounded by the Edomites. We look at the Edomites in whatever form they take and we see they progress so rapidly.

Why we can't even break out of our father's tent and he's already got a kingdom, multiple chiefs, and we're just squabbling among brothers? I wish we could take possession like that. I wish we could dominate so effortlessly.

We're used to that as believers. We look at the godless world around us, godless culture and godless society, and we see it progress so rapidly, dominate so effortlessly. We see the the hostile repudiation of God staining everything that they build and say and think and do.